Briefs: NAB feels slowdown, BOQ on target and RBNZ looks at payments

The slowdown in the mining sector is yet to trigger any increase in bad debts more broadly, Joseph Healy head of business banking at National Australia Bank, told the Financial Review. "There is no doubt that there are weaknesses in the mining sector," he told the newspaper. "We are seeing some of that in some of the exposure that we do have but there is nothing of undue concern for us. It is showing up, but not in a way that is creating abnormal levels of financial distress. There is no doubt there is a slowdown."

Bank of Queensland aims to lift its return on equity to 13 per cent in 2015 from 11.6 per cent recently, Anthony Rose, the bank's chief financial officer told the UBS financial services conference yesterday. Rose said the bank as "on track" to meet that and other management targets in 2013, with impaired assets trending lower.

The Reserve Bank of New Zealand's Head of Prudential Supervision Toby Fiennes has foreshadowed in a speech to the Law and Economics Association in Wellington the bank is pushing ahead with its review of payments system oversight. The bank issued a consultation paper in March and received submissions by May 3. The consultation paper proposed tougher oversight of the payments system because the bank said its powers were "blunt and poorly targeted." "After reviewing feedback from the consultation we will put forward firmer proposals as to how to address this gap," Fiennes said. No date was given.

The government agency supervising bankrupt estates is budgeting for a rise of 14 per cent in the number of cases over the two years, to June 2015. The Insolvency and Trustee Service Australia said it expected to deal with a rising number of such bankruptcies.

ANZ says it has reduced the time needed to send a "letter of offer" in its home loan business by 40 per cent, the bank's Australian CEO, Phil Chronican, told an investor conference yesterday. Another measure of improved processes, he said, was a fall of nine per cent in the number of customer complaints.

The 'Fair Play on Fees' campaign to launch class action law suits against New Zealand's banks over exception and overdraft fees said another 3000 ANZ customers had signed up for the first such legal action on Tuesday and Wednesday. This followed its announcement on Tuesday it would file a class action against ANZ next week. The news got top billing on most New Zealand media, helping to lift the total number of registered complainants against all the banks to over 28,000, including 14,000 ANZ customers.